Courtesy | Paramount Vantage

After graduating from college in 1990, Christopher McCandless gave his life savings to charity, cut up his credit cards and began wandering the country. For the next two years, he went under the name Alexander Supertramp and did not alert any family or friends to his whereabouts. Thanks to McCandless' journal entries during that time, Jon Krakauer turned McCandless' story into a book — “Into the Wild” — in 1996, and actor/director Sean Penn recently turned that book into a film of the same name. The film, which opens in San Antonio on Friday, Oct. 19, stars 22-year-old Emile Hirsch — known primarily for his starring roles in “Alpha Dog” and “The Girl Next Door” — as McCandless. Before “Into the Wild” hit theaters, 210SA sat down with Hirsch to talk about his experience filming in the Alaskan wilderness, losing 41 pounds and going full frontal in the bitter cold. (Note: This Q&A features spoilers regarding the ending of “Into the Wild”).
 

How do you portray someone, in McCandless, whom you would never be able to meet?
You do as much as you can. You pour through photos and photos and talk to family. You have to really be a detective and put the pieces together. There's a lot of detective work involved.

You lost 41 pounds to portray McCandless in his final days. How do you lose that much weight?
All it was was diet and exercise. The reason I don't go into it is because people in general get all crazy when it comes to the idea of weight loss. People get all hung up on that, so I decided not to bother talking about it.

Is director Sean Penn as surly as he's portrayed in the media?
What people don't give Sean enough credit for is how hilarious he is. He's very funny and very charming ..... For the most part, he's pretty exuberant and a really great storyteller. It was so much fun to have dinner and a couple of glasses of wine and hear all the hilarious stories he has. He has plenty of them.

Award buzz is starting to swirl regarding your performance. Do you get caught up in that?
I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I'm not going to be ungrateful for all that's coming on. But I don't think it's productive to think about that stuff that much. You want to keep a good head on your shoulders and not let it affect you too much ..... At the same time, you always remind yourself that (awards) are for other people to decide. That's not up to me.

You have a pretty revealing nude scene in the film, one in which you're floating down a river. What was it like stripping down for the cameras?
It was freezing cold, and I was just wrapped in freezing water. Your ears go under, you hear the rushing water and hear the echo and churn of the rocks. There's nowhere you can go, and you have to take it. It was freezing, and your body just goes numb. You get out, and even though it's freezing outside, it feels warm. I had a lot more nude scenes that got cut out, and I was really disappointed.

Regarding Chris McCandless, do you think he was crazy or do you think that, to him, his journey really did mean something?
It meant everything to him. It was true idealism and the quest of an idealist. He felt compelled to go looking for these things. It's so hard to judge a character you play, but I love Chris McCandless in the sense of what he was looking for and the spirit he had. Do I love the fact that he didn't contact his family? No, of course not. But he was a complicated guy with flaws like everybody. We're all human. People are quick to say he's a horrible person for not contacting his parents, and one of the things I think is, “Who says? Did you walk in his shoes? Do you know what happened or what it was like for him?” Unless you do, you don't know the whole story.

Do you think “Alpha Dog,” one of your most notable films, went underappreciated?
If I say it went underappreciated, I feel like I'd sound arrogant ..... I think it was appreciated by the people who saw it, and for the people who didn't, they didn't. I'm not someone who harbors resentment at the injustice of a film not succeeding. There are way more important things.

Do you think Justin Timberlake co-starring in “Alpha Dog” created a bit of preemptive backlash?
I hope not, and I don't think so. I don't think that's very fair. He gave an incredible performance, and I thought he was really good.

What was it like working with a guy like Timberlake, who was such a star in one industry but still trying to find his footing in another?
He's so good at everything, and he's such a fast learner. He was a little green in the beginning, just getting his feet wet. But by the time we started shooting, he hit it out of the park.

CLINT HALE | 210SA